Finding Your YES is a concept that evolved out of parenting from a place of yes. One day my teenage son said to me, you and Dad are very liberal. Well when a comment like that comes from your teenager, you get curious. “How’s that,” I asked. “Well you typically let me do many things that most parents say no to.” Of course that led to a deeper discussion and what I realized is that my innate parenting style was having a positive impact on my son. My style and personal intention is to be a YES Parent, to say yes to as many things as I possibly can, to really know why I am saying no when I choose to, and to put my child’s desires and authentic self-expression before my potential knee jerk reaction to control my days, time, environment, space, fear of loss, limit my worries, etc. As you read this you might be imagining that my house is a wild chaotic mess run by my not one but two teenage boys; and instead the very opposite is true. My house is calm even with the electric guitar and drums, my kids are happy, the many kids that sleep over are fun to be around and respectful, everyone that walks into our living room knows it’s an adult space and the things in it are to be treated with respect. I know that what my son was referring to when he spoke of being liberal was not indulgence, but permission. While keeping him safe, we give a lot of permission by saying yes to him and the result of that is that he feels free and fully self-expressed and with that he gains confidence and self-trust.
What’s true for all adults is that in our childhood and teen years, we had needs, desires and visions for what we would like to do and we were constantly needing to run those by a guardian adult, who might be a parent, caretaker, or teacher. They took our request and ran the idea through their own internal filtering system and came up with a yes or no to the desire being requested. That internal filtering system may have had nothing to do with what the child needed or wanted and the yes or no that came out of the guardian may have been more self-serving than anything else. This can start to create in the child the belief that their self-expression has little value and that what they want doesn’t count. Typically the guardian is saying no, but they are probably not really expressing to the child what they are saying no to, if they have actually thought it through. Fast-forward and that child or teen becomes an adult.
Now we’re talking about the adult. Imagine we’re talking about you now, wanting, needing, desiring or having a vision for yourself and the one you need to turn to for permission is you. You are now the adult granting or holding back permission.
How are you doing with that?
- Are you a YES Parent to yourself or are you consistently saying no?
- When you have a heartfelt need, a desire or exciting vision for your future what are you saying to yourself?
- Are you giving value to your own authentic self-expression?
This is where we want to encourage you to take time Finding Your YES! When you come up with a new idea, or desire, it’s natural to have a knee jerk reaction to keep the status quo and therefore the immediate response might be no, you can’t have that, create that, don’t go there, you’re out of your comfort zone. Just like the guardian raising you, you might quickly be running this idea through your comfort filter and no seems like the easy, most comfortable way out!
We encourage you to slow it down. We encourage you to ask yourself:
- What am I saying no to?
- Am I saying no to getting messy, stepping out of my comfort zone, am I saying no to failing at something new… WHAT exactly am I saying NO to?
- By saying no, what am I saying yes to?
- Is this what I WANT to be saying yes to?
- Is there something more or different that I truly would choose to say yes to if I created safety for myself and had the full support of my nurturing self?
This is part of the process of Finding Your YES and giving yourself full permission to be authentically self-expressed in your life. Once you are used to this idea the yeses can start to flow quite quickly. Your knee jerk answer will become yes, once you realize how fun Living Your YES can be.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
About the Author:
Maria Cristini, CPCC, PCC, is a life and business coach, and co-founder of Keys To Living with Ruth Oprean Cardillo, CPCC. Keys to Living, is a learning and coaching environment for personal development. At KTL we know that there are five basic keys to your life being abundant with joy and fulfillment and one of those keys is Finding Your YES.
There is much more to say on Finding Your YES. We encourage you to visit our website and register for the 2-week teleclass series on Finding Your YES. Sign up for our newsletter to receive part 2 of this article and put our blog on your news feed for updates.
© 2009, Maria Cristini
Keys To Living Workshops
www.keystolivingworkshops.com
info@keystolivingworkshops.com
Article: Finding Your YES – Part 1
Finding Your YES is a concept that evolved out of parenting from a place of yes. One day my teenage son said to me, you and Dad are very liberal. Well when a comment like that comes from your teenager, you get curious. “How’s that,” I asked. “Well you typically let me do many things that most parents say no to.” Of course that led to a deeper discussion and what I realized is that my innate parenting style was having a positive impact on my son. My style and personal intention is to be a YES Parent, to say yes to as many things as I possibly can, to really know why I am saying no when I choose to, and to put my child’s desires and authentic self-expression before my potential knee jerk reaction to control my days, time, environment, space, fear of loss, limit my worries, etc. As you read this you might be imagining that my house is a wild chaotic mess run by my not one but two teenage boys; and instead the very opposite is true. My house is calm even with the electric guitar and drums, my kids are happy, the many kids that sleep over are fun to be around and respectful, everyone that walks into our living room knows it’s an adult space and the things in it are to be treated with respect. I know that what my son was referring to when he spoke of being liberal was not indulgence, but permission. While keeping him safe, we give a lot of permission by saying yes to him and the result of that is that he feels free and fully self-expressed and with that he gains confidence and self-trust.
What’s true for all adults is that in our childhood and teen years, we had needs, desires and visions for what we would like to do and we were constantly needing to run those by a guardian adult, who might be a parent, caretaker, or teacher. They took our request and ran the idea through their own internal filtering system and came up with a yes or no to the desire being requested. That internal filtering system may have had nothing to do with what the child needed or wanted and the yes or no that came out of the guardian may have been more self-serving than anything else. This can start to create in the child the belief that their self-expression has little value and that what they want doesn’t count. Typically the guardian is saying no, but they are probably not really expressing to the child what they are saying no to, if they have actually thought it through. Fast-forward and that child or teen becomes an adult.
Now we’re talking about the adult. Imagine we’re talking about you now, wanting, needing, desiring or having a vision for yourself and the one you need to turn to for permission is you. You are now the adult granting or holding back permission.
How are you doing with that?
This is where we want to encourage you to take time Finding Your YES! When you come up with a new idea, or desire, it’s natural to have a knee jerk reaction to keep the status quo and therefore the immediate response might be no, you can’t have that, create that, don’t go there, you’re out of your comfort zone. Just like the guardian raising you, you might quickly be running this idea through your comfort filter and no seems like the easy, most comfortable way out!
We encourage you to slow it down. We encourage you to ask yourself:
This is part of the process of Finding Your YES and giving yourself full permission to be authentically self-expressed in your life. Once you are used to this idea the yeses can start to flow quite quickly. Your knee jerk answer will become yes, once you realize how fun Living Your YES can be.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
About the Author:
Maria Cristini, CPCC, PCC, is a life and business coach, and co-founder of Keys To Living with Ruth Oprean Cardillo, CPCC. Keys to Living, is a learning and coaching environment for personal development. At KTL we know that there are five basic keys to your life being abundant with joy and fulfillment and one of those keys is Finding Your YES.
There is much more to say on Finding Your YES. We encourage you to visit our website and register for the 2-week teleclass series on Finding Your YES. Sign up for our newsletter to receive part 2 of this article and put our blog on your news feed for updates.
© 2009, Maria Cristini
Keys To Living Workshops
www.keystolivingworkshops.com
info@keystolivingworkshops.com